This is a reliable storage area that can be accessed anywhere in UMBC, including from the HPC head node. Any UMBC researchers can purchase research data storage space. The file servers that make up this storage network each have redundant hardware. Thus no file server will suffer loss of data if there are minor hardware failures. If a file server has too many hardware failures at the same time, it will lose data. However, all data is stored twice – once in servers in the Public Policy building and once in servers in Engineering. Thus, even if an entire file server or entire server room fails, your data will not be lost. Also, we store ten daily archives of the data so if you accidentally delete data, we can undelete it for you. (The archives take very little space since the filesystem just stores the changes during each 24-hour period.)

The research data storage is accessible via NFS (a unix file sharing protocol). Thus you can mount this storage area on your local machines. In other words, you can easily set up your machine to make your research data storage accessible as if it was locally stored on your machine. The storage area can also be shared by Samba which allows it to be shared in that manner with a Windows machine as well. Samba file sharing is not yet tested but it should work. Currently, the research data storage is not accessible on the cluster nodes but it is accessible on the head node. If you need it to be accessible on the cluster nodes, that can be arranged.

Any researchers at UMBC can purchase research data storage space for a cost of $200 per year per 100 GB. You are billed every year on July 1. If you purchase storage after July 1, the charge will be prorated to July 1 (if you purchase mid-year you only pay for the remaining portion of the year).

If you wish to purchase research data storage space, or for any other inquiries related to the research data storage area, contact our research data storage point of contact.